Apple’s stock price soared big time for a single day last week the day after the company released unexpectedly favorable earnings for the March quarter. It was partly due to the fact that iPhone sales really exceeded most analyst estimates, and even the Mac did well. The iPad, well, not so much.

But Apple also pulled what some might regard as a pair of financial stunts to move the stock forward, although there is surely solid value to investors in what they did. First, the stock buyback program was increased by some $30 billion to $90 billion, scheduled to conclude by the end of 2015. The second was an unusual seven-to-one stock split, meaning you get seven shares for each one you own.

Now I’m not a Wall Street investor and I don’t play one on TV or radio, so I won’t presume to second guess the value of such clever maneuvers. Cutting back on the number of available shares in a company makes the remainder more valuable. A lower stock price, because of the split, means that it becomes more affordable for individual and institutional investors. That’s supposed to be a good thing.

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To be sure, despite the ongoing problems with Touch ID, Samsung must be extremely jealous of Apple because the fingerprint sensor system on the Samsung Galaxy S5 mostly doesn’t work at all. Indeed, this is  a high-profile feature that represents one of the most significant improvements on Samsung’s flagship smartphone. How’d they let it ship?

Now before you argue that Apple shouldn’t have released iOS 6 in 2012 with the broken Maps feature, bear in mind that it actually worked most of the time. Sure, there were serious bugs, location and display problems, and not all directions were as accurate as they could have been. But Google Maps isn’t perfect either, though admittedly less imperfect.

It’s also true that Touch ID arrived on the iPhone 5s in a somewhat ragged condition. Fingerprint sensors that have appeared in computers haven’t been perfect by a long shot, but Apple’s solution was neat and quite easy to configure. For the most part it even worked.

But the support forums were filled with complaints from people who said it was inconsistent. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Since you can create up to five fingerprint profiles, some suggested just making a few, giving the system more data with which to get it right. After all you don’t put your finger on the button in the exact same way every single time. There is some variance.

Part of that variation is supposed to be accommodated by the scanning process. You see an illustration of a gray fingerprint on the iPhone’s display as you let your finger rest on the Home button. It begins to fill in with red and you feel a vibration, after which you lift and rest your finger again to continue the process. You are supposed to move your finger around a little bit on each touch to get a more complete scan. The second pass is meant to capture the edges of your finger to flesh out the profile.

My experience was decidedly mixed. I got it to work maybe 75% of the time give or take, but it was good enough to show off to my friends. Over time recognition accuracy seemed to degrade, a not uncommon problem. Sure, there might be reasons, such as making sure your fingers are clean and not greasy. But allowing for all the variations, I wasn’t totally satisfied, and, more often than not, simply entered my passcode instead.

With the iOS 7.1 update, it seemed Touch ID was essentially broken. I could barely get it to work and wondered whether I should just take my iPhone in to an Apple Store for service. I was surely tempted.

Then came the 7.1.1 update, which promised improved Touch ID recognition. So I gave it another whirl. I deleted all the fingerprint images, and started over. This time, I made an extra effort to move my thumb around a bit more to provide the greatest possible range of data.

When I actually tried to make it work, it began to function again, well most of the time. It is not perfect, and the batting average remains in the .750 range, which I suppose I’ll have to accept for now. If I have the time, I might bring the unit over to the Apple Store and let a Genius see if they can find a more practical, workable solution.

But I half suspect Touch ID is going to be a somewhat imperfect solution even after all the software updates on the planet. All right, maybe I should also wipe down the iPhone again just to be sure there isn’t a spec of dust or dirt around that is just hurting detection accuracy.

But the 7.1.1 update is about more than Touch ID. There are published reports that it yields unexpected battery life improvements. This is fairly well common as an iOS reference release receives maintenance updates. It seems there are almost always battery life issues with the initial releases.

Yet according to a CNET commentator, battery life significantly deteriorated with the 7.1 update. But 7.1.1 significantly improved battery life on his iPhone 5. Other reports indicate some improvement, but nothing significant, so I suppose you should be pleased with what you get.

Now since buying an iPhone 5s last September, I have used it normally and have never actually calculated battery life. But having used iPhones for several years, I haven’t paid attention to any change unless it was significant. So some of my iPhones seemed to suffer from shortened battery life for a time, usually fixed in a software update. The battery life of the iPhone 5s seemed just about right based on my previous experiences.

However, better battery life is certainly a significant feature. But Apple rarely mentions it in an iOS update, and so you only know things have changed for the worse if you need to recharge more often. The release notes for iOS 7.1.1 are focused on Touch ID, keyboard responsiveness, and a problem using Bluetooth keyboards with VoiceOver enabled. Nothing is mentioned about battery life improvements. But providing bare-bones information is nothing new for Apple.

Meantime, I will update you on my Touch ID issues after visiting an Apple Store. I suppose I might end up with a new iPhone 5s if the unit is broken. We’ll see.

In announcing the quarterly financials for the March 2014 quarter, Apple may have been in a lose-lose situation. Regardless of what the figures would show, the usual offenders in the media who dislike what the company is all about will complain.

Now accompanying the news of the financial results, Apple played some more money games with its cache hoard by authorizing another $30 in share buybacks until the end of 2015, which increases the number to $90 billion. They also approved a seven-for-one stock split, which basically makes it possible for more people to afford to buy shares. That will no doubt increase stock sales, and the new stock price may soar when it becomes effective in June.

But by far the biggest news was revenue. Apple not only beat their own estimates of between $42 billion and $44 billion, a figure that made the financial community essentially yawn, but delivered actual revenues of $45.6 billion. It was a 4.6% increase over the same quarter last year, a record for a non-holiday quarter, and very much the result of selling 43.72 iPhones, millions more than the high-thirty million estimates from most of the financial community. In the year-ago quarter, Apple moved 37.4 million iPhones.

Earnings per share came in at $11.62, compared to $10.09 earnings per share last year. Gross margins totaled 39.3 percent, up from 37.5 percent last year. Wall Street should love higher profits.

Clearly there wasn’t much anticipation for the Samsung Galaxy S5 to depress sales of the iPhone. And considering the tepid reaction to the latest Samsung flagship, I don’t expect customers are lining up to buy them, which explains the discounts out of the starting gate. Mac sales did unexpectedly well too, at 4.1 million units, compared to less than 4 million last year. Apple attributes the sales results to high sales of MacBook Pros and Mac Pros, and they remain ahead of the overall PC market.

But iPad sales seemed tepid, coming in at the low end of analyst expectations at 16.3 million units. Last year some 19.5 million were sold.

While Apple’s overall financial picture appears better than many anticipated, financial analysts correctly predicted that the iPad would deliver disappointing sales. In the quarterly conference call with the financial community, CEO Tim Cook attributed the negative results to a drawdown in channel inventory, saying it was at the high end of the company’s expectations. Last year inventories were increased to handle late deliveries of the iPad mini, which was late to ship in the holiday 2012 quarter. This year, inventories were in balance. In short, Apple says the sell-through decrease was only 3 percent. Let me know when you’re ready to come up for air.

If you want to see how Apple might be able to increase iPad sales, check out this commentary from The Mac Observer’s John Martellaro, a frequent guest on The Tech Night Owl LIVE. While John makes some compelling arguments, I wonder about the demand for a larger iPad, the alleged 12.9-inch iPad Pro. The latest rumors suggest that such a beast has been delayed, after early predictions that it would arrive some time this year. But that may all be about one rumor feeding or being used as an excuse for another rumor.

Apple expects to earn between $36 billion and $38 billon this quarter, an increase over last year. If you want to see the numbers in all their glory, check Apple’s site for the particulars.

One thing is certain, and that is that Apple’s critics may be confounded by the better-than-expected numbers, but they will surely seize on the lower iPad sales, despite all the terms and conditions used to explain them.

Despite the high iPhone sales, the average sale price declined by $41, which is being attributed to record growth in emerging markets, where such models as the 2011 iPhone 4s remain quite popular.

In response to questions about flat iPad sales in the conference call, Cook said it was the fastest growing product in Apple’s history, the only product that became an instant hit for consumers, the enterprise and education at roughly the sam time. Over 210 million have been sold so far in the four years the product has been available.

Apple has a 95 percent share of tablets in the U.S. educational market, “the match has been lit,” and students do better with iPads. He felt confident that sales would continue to take off. In the enterprise, 98 percent of the Fortune 500 are using iPads, and 91% of the tablet activations were iPads. In other words, Android tablets remain a non-issue.

In the U.S. retail market, the iPad has a 46 percent share according to the latest NPD Group figures, although Cook disputes the viability of some of the competing products that dragged down the numbers. Cook also praised the arrival of Office for iPad and said it would help boost enterprise sales, where Microsoft’s productivity suite is mission critical.

He also talked of surveys showing that two-thirds of the people planning to buy tablets are considering iPads, and again cited the stellar online usage numbers, which seem far in excess of the actual market share. In the end, Cook promised that there are things in the pipeline that will make the iPad even better in the future. He summarized that, “I am very bullish on iPad.”

But whether customers will be bullish on the iPad clearly depends on what the next versions deliver. Meantime, you’ll hear the doom and gloom crowd suggesting the iPad era is over, and tens of millions of no-name Android tablets, with little or no distinctive features, are taking over.

While not having much new to say about the Apple TV, having shed its hobby status, Cook did report that some 20 million of them had been sold so far.

Say have you seen the iWatch? What’s that you say? Apple hasn’t released such a beast? Well, yes, but wasn’t there a rumor in the summer of 2013 suggesting that Apple had delayed release because of the complexities in building the product? Supposedly Apple had a large team working on the project, but they just couldn’t quite get it all together, so they delayed it until some unknown date in the future.

While all this may well be true, it may also be that this was a case of one rumor used to explain why yet another rumor hadn’t come to pass. Are you with me so far?

Now the iWatch rumors are here anew, this time suggesting you’ll see it as one of the new product categories Apple is expected to enter — and they did promise to enter new categories — later this year. You know that Apple is interested in wearables, because CEO Tim Cook has said so, but that does not a product make. So I suppose we’ll see.

When will the iWatch arrive? I suppose you might hear something at the WWDC in June, simply because Apple might want to entice developers to contribute special apps for the product, not to mention creating demand and freaking the competition. But that assumes an iWatch is coming this year. In the end, there may be yet another rumor that it has been delayed yet again.

Of course, the Apple critics crowd will complain, suggesting that Apple is losing big time in not entering a market that’s becoming more and more crowded all the time. Only thing: None of those smartwatches has taken off in any compelling way, but if Apple wants to enter this space, it should do so soon. There’s no guarantee there won’t be another breakaway product one of these days, perhaps from some startup company we know little or nothing about. Or maybe the Pebble will catch a wave.

That takes us to the latest rumor being used as an excuse for a rumor.

This time, it’s about the alleged 5.5-inch iPhone, Apple’s alleged first entry into the phablet market; a phablet being a gadget that combines a smartphone with a small tablet. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities, this product, meant to accompany release of the alleged 4.7-inch iPhone 6 this coming fall, has been delayed until perhaps some time in 2015. Why? Well, evidently Apple wants to make a trendsetting phablet, super thin in the spirit of the iPad Air, known as the iPhone Air. But they are having problems perfecting a two millimeter thick battery to keep the gadget smooth and thin.

Of course, Apple has said nothing about the next generation iPhone, and won’t until days from the actual release, which one presumes to be September. That, however, might change, but it also presumes that iOS 8 will be ready in time, since one goes with the other.

In any case, Kuo isn’t the sort of person you dismiss as just another analyst making up stories. Evidently, he has a better rate of accuracy than others in his business, so when he says something, it tends to be taken seriously.

But that doesn’t mean he’s right!

Now the latest iPhone rumors have, as a whole, centered on a 4.7-inch model. This would be Apple’s first foray into larger form factors since the move from 3.5-inch displays to 4-inch displays starting the iPhone 5 in 2012. It even makes sense, since Tim Cook has not dismissed the idea of a larger iPhone. His excuse for not releasing one now is that there are technology problems with such things as picture quality and battery life. Apple doesn’t want to build a battery-sucking monster, or a thicker iPhone to compensate for the need of a larger battery. Return to the story about the iPhone phablet as an example of Apple’s obsession with thin, even if we have no idea whether such a product will ever see the light of day.

It’s also true that people do clearly want larger smartphones, and Apple would, I’m sure, love to accommodate those needs while retaining the ability to use one hand as much as possible. At the very least, the rumor of a larger iPhone 6 sounds perfectly credible. I’m not sure I’d trade my iPhone 5s for one, but you get the point.

However, I’m still highly skeptical of whether Apple wants to jump into the phablet game. Yes, millions of sales are involved, particularly in the Asian market where they are popular. But the form factor is not without its problems.

For one thing, a phablet is too small to be a credible tablet. Even the 7-inch form factor is troubled, but Apple get’s away with the 7.87 iPad mini by using a standard aspect ratio. The other tablets are widescreens, which are suited for movies, but not so much for other purposes, such as surfing the Internet, particularly when placed horizontally. This was the very argument Apple VP Philip Schiller used when the mini debuted in 2012.

As far as an even larger iPhone is concerned, one commentator likened a phablet to the large brick phones of old, or perhaps a shoe phone. The concept is just too awkward, and I suppose he was a fan of the 1960s comedy spy show, “Get Smart,” where CONTROL agent Maxwell Smart famously placed his shoe to his ear to have a phone conversation. Maybe creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry were on to something.

In summary, a larger iPhone seems a lock. An iPhone phablet by whatever name not so much.